Devices, servers, applications and other computer systems log system, security, application, and other information. The messages in these logs must be analyzed to turn raw data into actionable intelligence. Unfortunately, log messages are not always well-specified (i.e., with a formal grammar), and log analysis systems must reverse engineer patterns from example data. Existing log message parsers require that the entire log message is to conform to a specific pattern prescribed by a regular expression to enable the log message to be parsed. Given a log message and its type, a parser runs the message against the appropriate regular expression and extracts the elements of interest. However, in order to utilize the parser, the parser must have a priori knowledge of the entire message structure and a regular expression for the entire message. Log messages, by nature, are not rigidly structured like programming languages, but instead are loose amalgams of simply structured fragments intended for human consumption. Even with a regular expression parsing the entire message, the regular expression is susceptible to failure due to slight variations in log message formats. Therefore, there exists a need for a better way to analyze a log message.